Games between humans and AIs

Abstract

Various potential strategic interactions between a “strong” Artificial intelligence (AI) and humans are analyzed using simple 2 × 2 order games, drawing on the New Periodic Table of those games developed by Robinson and Goforth (The topology of the 2 × 2 games: a new periodic table. Routledge, London, 2005). Strong risk aversion on the part of the human player(s) leads to shutting down the AI research program, but alternative preference orderings by the human and the AI result in Nash equilibria with interesting properties. Some of the AI-Human games have multiple equilibria, and in other cases Pareto-improvement over the Nash equilibrium could be attained if the AI’s behavior towards humans could be guaranteed to be benign. The preferences of a superintelligent AI cannot be known in advance, but speculation is possible as to its ranking of alternative states of the world, and how it might assimilate the accumulated wisdom (and folly) of humanity.

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